Ottawa sending 'mixed messages' on Olympic security costs: Nenshi

Sammy Hudes

Updated: November 5, 2018

Mayor Naheed Nenshi speaks as hundreds came out to support the Yes vote and rally for the 2026 Winter Olympics at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre on Monday, Nov. 5, 2018.Darren Makowichuk / Postmedia

On Sunday, Public Safety Canada deferred to comments made by Sports Minister Kirsty Duncan when asked whether potential security cost overruns would fall to the federal or municipal government. Duncan told reporters last week the federal government is “not responsible for cost overruns” under the government’s policy for hosting international sporting events.

A spokesman from the Ministry of Sport further told Postmedia that overruns related to security costs, should they balloon beyond their $495-million budget, would not be covered under the federal policy.

But the Calgary 2026 bid corporation said it believed Public Safety Canada, the federal department responsible for ensuring the safety of Canadians, would pick up the tab on any potential security cost overruns.

“This is very confusing because the federal government has been giving remarkably mixed messages on this question and it certainly would be helpful for me if they could get on the same page,” Nenshi said Monday after speaking to hundreds of citizens and athletes in favour of a bid at a downtown rally.

“That is typically their role and we’ll clear that up with them,” he said. “All of that said, remember there’s lots of time to sort this stuff out.”

Calgarians will head to the polls on Nov. 13 to vote in the city’s Olympic plebiscite. Advance polls for the public vote take place Tuesday and Wednesday.

Nenshi said Calgarians have sufficient clarity on the issue to cast their ballots.

“I believe it’s the federal government’s responsibility, but also as I said, this budget, unlike other budgets, already has $1 billion of contingency in it,” he said. “If we’re going to blow the budget by more than $1 billion, then we have to be pretty realistic about what’s possible and we’re not going to do that.”

Nenshi was referring to a contingency fund of $1.1 billion to mitigate financial risk included in Calgary’s draft host plan. But he said it’s unlikely that the Games would need to use all of it.

“This is different. It’s not Vancouver, it’s not Pyeongchang, it’s not Sochi. We’re not building a lot of stuff,” he said. “We’ve got outstanding project management in place to manage any capital cost overruns. Most cost overruns come not from construction costs, they come from people building more stuff than they had originally put in the plan and that we will not do.”

On Monday, a spokesman for Public Safety Canada said the department was looking into the matter. A spokesman for the minister of sport said it would get back to a request to clarify the situation “as soon as we can.”

Meanwhile, the Alberta government said it’s out of the question that such cost overruns would fall to the province’s taxpayers.

“The minister of finance made it very clear that the government of Alberta would commit a maximum of $700 million to a Calgary 2026 Games bid,” a cabinet spokesman said in a statement. “Additionally, the government of Alberta has stated in writing, to both the mayor of Calgary and the federal minister of sport, that we will not be able to provide any additional funds that may be required, including those to cover revenue shortfalls of cost overruns.”

Some have pointed to the contrast between Calgary’s security budget and the $900 million spent on safety in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, a total that was about five times the initial estimate.

Nenshi said that won’t happen in Calgary.

“What happened in 2010 is people had no idea what they were doing,” Nenshi said. “It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction and, in fact, the numbers that we’ve got now are the numbers from the RCMP.”

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